Priyanka Chopra To Play Ma Sheela

Ma Sheela, the  hypnotic Acharya  Rajneesh’s  right-hand woman and most trusted disciple, will now be seen in a movie  version of her  life,  to be played  by none other than India’s most luscious  Bollywood import Priyanka  Chopra.

Speaking on Tuesday night on the widely watched  Ellen Degenres Show  Priyanka said she is “developing” a project  on  the  life  of  Ma Anand Sheela(real name  Sheela AmabalalPatel)  with  the highly-regarded  director Barry Levinson who is  best known for  the Oscar winning  film Rain Man.

While this  is  great news  for Priyanka  fans,as she  hasn’t been seen on screen in anything significant  recently(and even her  on-release  Hollywood film Isn’t It Romantic to be  out  on February 14 has her in  a relatively minor role) there are many hurdles  to makinga  film on  a figure as  hideously  controversial as Ma Sheela.

 As  Rajneesh’s  personal  secretary  Ma Sheela created  havoc with the  law and was  accused and sentenced for several crimes.

It  is doubtful that the real Ma Sheela would  allow  Priyanka Chopra  to do a screen version without exercising  some  level of creative control over what goes  in.Also, Priyanka  claims the  project  is  in development. This means  it would take a minimum  of two years  for  the  film to actually hit theatres.

Does that mean we  don’t see Priyanka  on screen for that long?

Interestingly Karan Johar is  also developing a  project based in the  life of AcharyaRajneesh where  Aamir Khan and  Alia Bhatt are the  potential  actors to play Rajneesh and Ma Sheela.